Though this has been his one and only season at Purdue playing a true lead role, Ryan Cline will leave as one of its greatest shooters ever, the numbers show.
With at least one game left to play, the Boilermaker senior is one three-pointer shy of 225 for his career, likely to finish fifth all-time at Purdue, one spot ahead of Robbie Hummel at the moment.
Cline carries into the NCAA Tournament a career three-point percentage of 40.7 percent, which stands currently seventh all-time, sandwiched between Ryne Smith's 40.8 and Jimmy Oliver's 40.6.
For the entirety of Cline's career, his jump shot has been effective, generally consistent and, well, as it's always been, funny looking.
"Fly-fishing," as Matt Painter described Cline's delivery.
But that's how it's always been, and Cline's uncommon delivery has served him well, especially this season, as a focal point of a Purdue offense built this season to be screen-heavy for Carsen Edwards and Cline alike.
"He can make shots on the move, make shots coming out of the action that we run for him, and he can make tough shots," Painter said. "A lot of times you see a guy and when he's open, he's a good shooter, but can he move and shoot? Ryan's very good at moving and shooting."
On countless occasions this season, Cline's made threes from the top of the arc drifting up the floor off down screens or drifting laterally as the pick-and-roll ball-handler with a post player.
That sort of versatility is the product of his delivery, with a unique launch point that Cline believes has drifted backward even further over time, making his shots particularly difficult to contest.
FROM OUR ARCHIVES
The following story is from Gold and Black Illustrated, from the fall of 2014.
It was overtime and Ryan Cline stepped to the foul line to take shots millions of other kids had tried in vain to put themselves in position to attempt, the ultimate pressure-cooker situation with a national championship hanging in the balance.
To add another layer to the scene, he’s in Springfield, Mass., where the game was invented and its Hall of Fame located.
“It’s dead silent,” Cline said. “All you could hear was the bounce of the ball. You’ve got people and kids all around watching you, your family watching, the ref throwing you the ball. Everyone’s recording.”
Cline stepped to the foul line, all eyes on him, and achieved perfection in a mettle-testing moment, one in which a championship was won.
By the way, Cline was 13 years old, and this was the final round of the Elks National Hoop Shoot national free throw competition back in 2010.
Countless kids entered in the 12- to 13-year-old boy’s division.
It came down to Cline and two others in a five-shot overtime session after all three had gone 23-of-25 in “regulation.”
One boy made just two of his shots; the other made four.
Cline made ‘em all.
“It was a big stage,” recalled Cline, who’d won three other competitions to get to the final. “There was a lot of pressure.”
When pressure hits, one can always fall back on technique, and that’s likely what Cline did in those moments.
It’s what he always does, the Carmel High School star relying so much on the intricate operation that’s made him one of the finest shooters in his class nationally, a strikingly consistent jump-shooter who sometimes throws the ball in the basket with such ease, it seems, that it’s almost comical.
“It’s something special,” said former Cline AAU teammate and future Purdue teammate Grant Weatherford. “… Every time it went up, we all started getting back on defense because everyone figured it was going in.”
It’s about technique, the same technique his father, Mike Cline, used when he was an outstanding shooter for Ohio State in the ’70s and taught his son at a young age.
There have been other coaches and instructors who’ve dabbled with Ryan Cline’s form over the years, but mostly in consultant roles.
Cline’s education as a jump-shooter began, in essence, with anything but jump shots.
“To start with, it was about trying to keep him from shooting (jumpers) far too early,” Mike Cline said. “Some kids like to shoot the three too early, and I kept telling him that form was the most important thing. Even if you have to shoot it from (your waist) and get the right push with your right hand. Getting the right form from the beginning is what I think he did from a young age in second, third, fourth grade.”
That was the beginning of Cline’s uncompromising form, form devoid of superfluous motion.
“From a shooting standpoint, from a teaching standpoint, the less movement you have, the better chance you have to be consistent,” said LaSalle Thompson, long-time Cline trainer and father of Boilermaker point guard P.J. Thompson, said. “When you watch Ryan shoot the ball, he’s extremely compact in his ability to maintain his shooting pocket and his form. There’s not a lot of room for movement, which creates less room for error in his shot. That allows him to be consistent in his shooting stroke.”
It’s a highly compact stroke, a motion in which Cline catches the ball with his left hand almost on top of the ball and toward its front (“for security and guidance,” he says), to be withdrawn prior to his three-finger release, the shot launched in a quick, tight leg burst, kind of like bread popping out of a toaster, bent left elbow left hanging upon release of the ball.
Cline was so small and weak when he got to high school — 5-foot-11, 130 pounds, Carmel coach Scott Heady guessed — that he didn’t have near the strength to shoot the way he now can, after growing to 6-5.
“As I got older I brought it away from the hip and brought it up to my face, then over my head, then got my legs into it,” Cline said. “Then I started jumping and putting it over my head, I started doing it sophomore year because honestly I wasn’t strong enough freshman year, but sophomore year was when it developed into a real jump shot.”
It’s a wrist-driven delivery that generates blurring rotation and swooping arc and thus very rarely connects with anything but splashing nylon when it works.
It’s a shot he can shoot with equal success as a stand-still shooter; coming off screens, a science he’s advanced in; fading away; dribbling into his shot; and all forms of jumper in between, from mid-range and especially long range. There’s little discernible difference in his success rates between two- and three-point shots.
“You have to put the ball over your head, over the right eye,” Cline said, “and when you shoot it you have to make sure it’s a nice flick of the wrist, and you have to make sure you know it’s going in every time and you never think you’re going to miss a shot before you shoot it. Extend the arm and extend the wrist and be confident with it.”
Preparedness is crucial to Cline also.
Playing at Carmel and for his father in AAU much of his summer-ball career, Cline learned how to function with screens and has grown savvy beyond his years doing so.
On the catch, he prefers to step into a pass moving left to right, seeming particularly comfortable cutting to the top of the arc off simple down or flare screens.
“I feel like my shot preparation is pretty good,” Cline said, “the way I catch it and how ready I am to shoot it.”
Cline’s execution, generally speaking, is outstanding.
When it’s not, he usually knows why.
“Normally I don’t get my legs into it,” Cline said. “It’s almost always short, so that’s one thing I’ve put an emphasis on, a shot can never be short for me. If I’m going to miss it’s going to be long. Not left or right, it will be long.”
Cline’s come a long way, from runt as a freshman — “We didn’t even know if we could bring him up to J.V.,” Heady said — to one-dimensional stand-in-the-corner spot-up shooter as a sophomore, to multi-dimensional shooter/scorer/ball-handler as an upperclassmen, a Mr. Basketball front-runner who shot 43 percent from three-point range as a junior and 41-plus percent on this spring and summer’s highly competitive adidas Gauntlet circuit.
“I think in the past couple of years he has gotten (his shot) up a little bit higher and has tweaked a couple of things to simplify shots,” said Heady, who’s needed Cline to bring the ball up the floor as the Greyhounds’ point guard last season and thus far this season. “He catches it and then he’s right into his shot. He gets it away pretty quick. There’s not a lot of wasted movement in his motion and I think that’s why he’s so effective.
"And being 6-5 and having a high-arc shot makes him hard to guard. In the past few months he has really gotten better at driving the ball and being able to create his own shot. That makes him really tough to deal with.”
Boilermaker coach Matt Painter called Cline “the best shooter in the Midwest” when he signed him in November, suggesting he holds the potential to be a rare “50-percent three-point shooter.”
Purdue’s had one of those, by the way, in its history, Jaraan Cornell in ’98.
The Boilermaker program stockpiled skill in recent years, hording shooters in hopes of turning a weakness from past seasons into a decided strength.
Flamethrowers, they’re often referred to informally.
Cline is certainly that.
“Ryan works extremely hard and in my opinion, he’s one of the best high school shooters I’ve ever seen,” said LaSalle Thompson, a former Indiana high school star and Ball State standout who’s been training players in Indy and coaching AAU for years now. “His ability to shoot the basketball, I’ve seen a lot of kids over the years, especially the last 20-25 years, and I’d rank him the best shooter in Indiana high school basketball I’ve seen.”
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